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A WORD OF CAUTION! I don't know if you currently have any P3D software currently or not. However the latest versions of P3D and P3D upgrades come with a very small number of "Default" airplanes. All the ads and revues talk about Beechcraft planes, Ch-46s, and several aircraft that were part of the original P3D package. If you buy the current P3D or even "upgrade" an earlier version, several of the "default" aircraft they talk about either aren't there anymore or if you upgrade an older version, will disapear. It seems Lockheed didn't get permission from manufacturers like Textron to show their planes as default. So they now must remove them from new installations or upgrades!

Not to worry though. They still have such important "vehicles" as a submarine, a bathscape, a male soldier without a weapon, and TBTG, an armed soldier among their default "vehicles!" Though I doubt you'll be able to log many submarine or soldier hours towards your GA licenses.

Michael

i9-9900K CPU currently running 5gig + -
Most of my scenery is from ORBX. I love my SCOTFLIGHT SCENERY!
Being an old chopper guy I usually fly low and slow.

Not to worry though. They still have such important "vehicles" as a submarine, a bathscape, a male soldier without a weapon, and TBTG, an armed soldier among their default "vehicles!" Though I doubt you'll be able to log many submarine or soldier hours towards your GA licenses.

Michael

Sounds like a good candidate for both companies looking to build a simulator to train mini sub pilots, and the sub pilots themselves. One of the primary goals of Microsoft's ESP, and now P3D, was expanding the sim into commercial uses beyond just flying. Looks like they're still continuing with this plan.

I am enclosing here a few shots of the very few P3D default "vehicles" remaining in today's version of P3d, in this case P3Dv4.5. It seems every "update" of P3D eliminates more and more of the default "vehicles"!

People often talk about earning GA time using P3D. But frankly as a RW pilot I have trouble seeing how logging their hours in any of these "vehicles" such as the submarine will help anyone obtain any type of certification!!

IMHO if you're not willing to spend a TON OF MONEY BUYING AIRCRAFT YOU THOUGHT WERE ALREADY INCLUDED, STAY WITH FSX!! Other than the fancier weather patterns, I can't say P3D, including this latest update, is worth your or my investment!

Is it really that hard to understand that P3D is a simulation platform intended as a base for companies and others to build complete simulators on top of? It is much more than just a GA flight sim. From the P3D website:

Prepar3D (pronounced “prepared”) is a visual simulation platform that allows users to create training scenarios across aviation, maritime, and ground domains. Users can train anywhere in the virtual world, from underwater to sub orbital space.

Having to purchase additional aircraft doesn't seem to be big problem considering how few, if any, default aircraft in any sim are as good or as complete as third party ones. If one really wants to use the sim for real world training, they should be looking for better add-on aircraft anyways. And if the extra expense is too much, then by all means, look elsewhere, but lack of included aircraft seems a pretty poor argument for avoiding P3D.

Unless you install an earlier version, take out the simobjects folder, install the new one and then put the planes that were in the old one into the new one. I did the same with the FSX default aircraft just to have them in P3D. I mostly fly the Carenado 152 to practice for my real world flying though (had to modify and correct a couple of things on it to make it more realistic). It still has it's quirks (engine still runs underpowered as compared to the real world) but is pretty good until flight dynamics get better overall (other sims do them better but I like the addons for P3D).